Testing new RAM from ESX 3 Command Line

[LeClem]

Hello,

I just purchased some RAM that unfortunately, seems a little sketch (Infineon).

I'm going to install the RAM tonight to bring the lab machine from 4gb to 6gb. I'd like to test the chips and I'd assume this can't be done in a VM and thus must be done with ESX at the command line. Does anyone know how I can do this? Is this something built in or do I have to download an RPM?

Do any of you have good experiences with Infineon? I currently only have Samsung DDR PC3200 ECC REGISTERED chips in my machine. Infineon is the same spec but different brand.

Thanks,

leclem

[LeClem]

Upon further research, I see that it's likely I'd have to use boot CD but I see in http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/tac0028.pdf that "ESX 3.0 comes with a utility to test unused RAM without downtime"

Anyone knows what this can be?

[mwheeler1982]

As far as Infineon, I cannot say I have any experience with their RAM, but I do know they're one of the 3 vendors that Sun supports in their x86 servers...

For the RAM, you probably won't get much luck with testing the RAM from within ESX.. You probably won't have any way of telling which stick it is if you're trying to test it all at the same time.

If you have enough ESX hosts in your cluster (or a spare server), I'd recommend downing one of them and booting off a memtest86+ CD and testing your RAM a stick at a time. You can get a bootable CD at: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

[esiebert7625]

Check out this post...

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=69616&tstart=330

fyi...if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons...thanks

[LeClem]

Gawd, that sucked. It's 2am and I just got this resolved somewhat.

As it turns out, my servers hated the Infineon RAM. Either that or I got DOA RAM out the wazoo. 1 in 4 of the chips worked, I'm returning for refund and just leaving it as is for awhile.. Strange thing, my networking died after booting with 6gb (all Samsung, original) on one of my machines. Talk about stress.

So now I'm still at 4gb ram each and weird networking issues on one. I'm curious as to what the tool is that ESX provides. I'll likely try to e-mail the author of the said PDF.

Thanks to you both for your helpful info.

[JMills]

Upon further research, I see that it's likely I'd

have to use boot CD but I see in

http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/tac0028.pdf

that "ESX 3.0 comes with a utility to test unused RAM

without downtime"

Anyone knows what this can be?

There are -some- background scrub and test on allocate before commit processes you can enable, I don't recall the flags you'd have to set off the top of my head.

Background scrubbing would likely get you more lead-time on hardware capable of identifying predicted failure, assuming you had it running for "a while" and your early time during that chassis's uptime was spent primarily idle and unloaded (leaving most of RAM unallocated).

Test on allocate before commit would slow the actual allocation process down when memory is requested, giving you the ability to side-step, if you will, rather than planting your foot directly into a patch of bad memory. Weird analogy, it's late.